I was going to have to keep these damn glasses on all night the way things were going, and the way my lips were twitching from the itchy little mustache, I couldn’t possibly be taken seriously. Then again, maybe I could play that to my advantage.
“Do I need clearance first?” I said, twitching on purpose to fight the bubble of laughter that threatened.
“You checked out,” he said, focusing on his tiles.
I immediately abandoned the teasing flirtation. “You had me checked out??” On the one hand, I felt I should be outraged, or at the very least offended, but on the other hand, I had to admit, I was a little thrilled.
“No.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. I told myself it was in relief, but I think it was more likely disappointment.
“I checked you out myself,” he confirmed. “I am officially a ‘spy,’ and can do my own dirty work.”
I opened my mouth to bluster out a protest at the same moment he laid down his tiles, using my “L” to spell “LEVERING” on a double-word space, using all his letters and earning himself a fifty-point bonus, effectively stealing my thunder. Closing my mouth, I gazed calmly at him. It was unlikely I was going to come back from this. He knew it, and I knew it.
“Are you impressed yet?” he asked.
I blinked at him. If he wasn’t my best friend, I’d be flirting up a storm right now. What can I say? Words impress me, “spy” having particular impact. But this was Ethan . . . goofball, computer geek, Mr. Secrets Ethan. I glanced over at him from beneath my two caterpillar eyebrows and imagined sitting on his lap, pulling off his glasses, running my fingers along the edge of his jaw, leaning in . . .
My hand jerked suddenly and sent my tiles tumbling off the table and onto the patio stones. Thrilled to have a momentary escape, I ducked my head and tried to pull it together as I gathered the little vowels and consonants.
But when Ethan’s head suddenly dipped down to my level, I started again, rapping my head on the iron table and shooing all thoughts of Ethan from my head. Except perhaps the blameful ones.
“Shit! Oof.” Gritting my teeth against the pain, I snatched up the remaining tiles, went topside, and violently repositioned my tiles, spontaneously deciding to play “VAIN” off his “V”
Cradling my head and gulping down wine in a determined effort to dull my senses, I silently added a string of curses to the first.
This was all his fault. Friendly competition was one thing, but it was hardly fair play given that he’d had formal government training (it didn’t matter that I had no idea in what exactly), and I was just a civilian. It occurred to me that my crack on the head might have knocked something loose. Something kind of critical.
I let my eyelids shutter closed—just for one peaceful moment. When I opened them again, Ethan was watching me, and I was ready to change the subject.
“How about I order the pizza, and you play both our hands?” I suggested.
“Why don’t we just put the game away and do something else?”
All the conflicting thoughts I’d been having about Ethan, prompted by the recent Knightley daydreams and the spy guesswork, were starting to wreak havoc on my palling around with him. I was reading innuendo into everything, imagining the two of us in compromising positions, and tripping over myself in every situation. It had to stop. And I knew the perfect way to stop it.
“You up for a little experiment?”
His eyebrows shifted slightly, but otherwise he didn’t visibly react. “Possibly. I’m going to need a little more information.”
I glanced toward the house to make sure my mother was busily occupied and then settled my gaze on Ethan.
“Okay, here’s the deal. Things are a little garbled right now, between the journal and . . . you . . . and even me,” I admitted, thinking of Cat. “And I admit, the journal has inspired me to do a little matchmaking among friends. . . .”
Ethan’s posture relaxed and he looked away, clearly amused.
“Seriously? You’re trying to set people up?”
I couldn’t decide if the stress had been on the “you’re” in that sentence and whether I should be offended, but Ethan didn’t give me time to figure it out.
“The experiment isn’t about you trying to set me up, is it?” he demanded.
“No!” I assured him, rather huffily. “Not exactly. And give me a little credit. I may be an amateur, but I’m consulting with a professional.” I squared my shoulders and straightened the Scrabble tiles on the board. “I’m getting backup advice from—” I paused. “Gypsy Jane” didn’t sound particularly reputable. “Jane Austen.”
“What?!” Ethan exploded before quickly reining himself in. He settled back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting, no doubt valiantly fighting a giant eye roll from overtaking him.
“It’s already working,” I assured him, a little smugly. “Mom had a date last week while you were out of town.” I tipped my head saucily.
“With whom?”
“Mr. Carr,” I said, daring him to find fault with the situation.
“From school?” He seemed baffled.
“Yep. They hit it off marvelously. In fact, you can see for yourself on Wednesday. He’s coming over for a barbecue dinner . . . and maybe a little Burn Notice.”
That last bit threw him a little, but he shook it off.
“I think maybe I will,” he said, looking a little smug himself. Then again, Ethan often looked a little smug, and not always for good reason. I decided to ignore it.
“Anyone else?” he asked. Drawled is probably more accurate.
“I’m working on it,” I said cryptically, not really wanting to share the rest just yet. “But the matchmaking is only part of the madcap muddle. Then there’s the whole ‘secret spy’ situation with you,” I said, using air quotes while lowering my voice and glancing around nervously.
The corners of Ethan’s mouth lifted in amusement.
“What about it?”
“Let’s just say it’s adding to the confusion.”
“The confusion over what?” He seemed genuinely interested.
“You and me.” Now I was avoiding his gaze, which I knew was leveled in my direction and as sharp as a laser.
“What about us?” he asked quietly.
My heart was beating quickly now, and I wanted to just blurt it out, but at the same time I wanted to sound casual and confident.
“About the potential for more between us than just . . . Scrabble.”
I fiddled with the tiles in front of me, switching, rearranging.
Now his voice was low and tight, and I wondered how mine sounded.
“More, as in . . . ?”
And then I couldn’t take it anymore—I just wanted to know. Businesslike and matter-of-fact, I scraped my chair back, stood up, and leaned into Ethan, pausing once, just barely touching, before laying my lips determinedly on his.
I hardly had a moment to gauge the situation before Ethan’s competitive spirit fired to life, and he had reached over, hooked his finger in the belt loop of my jeans, and tugged me toward him.
My mouth opened in a gasp of surprise, and that was all it took for my little experiment to become a full-fledged project.
And then we were egging each other on, pushing each other’s buttons, looking for a reaction, craving attention.
My lips rasped over his jaw and down his neck. His hands skimmed softly over my waist and then shifted down to settle firmly, possessively on my hip. I was done imagining—I was literally ready to tear his clothes off.
With considerable effort, I pulled myself away.
“Come upstairs,” I murmured, feeling flushed and light and happy.
He stood, laced his fingers with mine, and tugged, leaving the Scrabble determinedly behind.
With each stair, my pulse beat out its encouragement, and by the time we reached the door and slipped inside, it was all I could hear. Until Ethan spoke.
“There’s no going back after
this.”
“No,” I agreed. “But you said it yourself: We could be friends with benefits.”
“Hell yeah, we could,” he said, grinning.
“And we should probably find out . . . just see . . . whether there’s anything there . . .”
I fully recognized how ridiculous this sounded, coming only moments after our spontaneous interlude on my mom’s back porch, given the fireworks we’d started, but as justifications went, I thought it worked.
Ethan evidently agreed, seeing as we launched at each other at precisely the same moment. He had me backed up against the wall beside the door, clinging to him like a monkey, hoping his touch would quell the fluttery little shivers coursing over my body.
I slid off his glasses, feeling very Lois Lane, and then tugged up his shirt, pressing my (slightly chilly) hands against the planes of his stomach. He winced, which made things down there feel even sexier and had me biting my lip in hot anticipation.
He was busy himself, unbuttoning the cardigan sweater I’d thrown on to go out this morning and unhooking my jeans, but now he paused, stripping off his shirt and looking me over.
“I pegged you for lacy underwear,” he said.
I glanced down at myself, blushing.
“If I’d known the day was going to go like this, you can bet it would have been.” As it was, I was standing in front of him in white cotton, feeling slightly less sexy.
“Then I’m glad you didn’t know, because I like this,” he said.
He was charming me, slowly and deliberately, and like it or not, it had me wondering how many other women he’d looked at in just this way.
And then I looked at him—I mean really looked at him. The man could have been Mr. November in a fireman’s calendar! For all I knew, he was, although probably not in a fireman’s calendar . . . maybe in a spy geek calendar. How could I possibly have missed this? It didn’t matter, because I didn’t intend to miss a thing right now.
Before we could attack each other again near the doorway, I pulled him along into my tiny bedroom, pushed him backward on the bed, and climbed up to straddle him.
He reached his hands around to cup my ass, and I leaned over him, propping myself up by my elbows.
“Ve haf vays of making you talk,” I teased.
“I bet you do,” he agreed. “But I have a question of my own.”
“Ask away.”
“How spontaneous was this?”
“Oh, very,” I assured him. “My intention for the evening was to make up, and maybe engage in a little merciless teasing.”
“Has this ever crossed your mind before?”
I sat up straighter and looked him shyly in the eye. “Maybe a couple of times—in a vague, nebulous, it’ll-never-happen kind of way. What about you? Did I just totally blow your mind?” I grinned.
“Not as much as I expect you’re going to,” he admitted, “but you definitely took me off guard. You want secrets? I’ve been imagining this for a while now.”
“Since when?”
“Since the first time I saw you smile—a real, can’t-hold-back smile.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, pushing myself up.
“I’m not,” he said, matter-of-factly, bumping out my elbows with his and reaching his hands up to cup my face and bring it down to his. “I hope you’re worth the wait,” he said, all dimples. And then he flipped over on top of me and all thoughts of teasing fled.
Chapter 12
We were lying splayed out on my bed, playing footsie, when someone knocked. Someone being my mother.
“Cate? What happened out here? It looks like you two just lost interest in the middle of the game.”
I sat up guiltily, glancing over at Ethan, who was smiling at me, one arm folded behind his head.
I felt suddenly, flamingly self-conscious and yanked the sheet over myself, daring not even to look at Ethan’s naked body in my bed.
“We got hungry,” I called. Ethan squeezed my hand, and the shivery chills were back again. “Ethan went to get a pizza.”
This got a reaction out of him. I shrugged and made wild eyes at him.
“Why didn’t you just order one?”
“Home Slice doesn’t deliver, and we needed a little space,” I said, racking up the little white lies as Ethan shifted his bare leg to press up against mine. “We had a little tiff,” I added, hoping this would explain the condition of the table.
“So are you licking your wounds in there?” she pressed.
I closed my eyes, not wishing to see the amusement that was certain to be written plainly on Ethan’s face.
“Something like that. I’ll be down in a few minutes to clean things up,” I promised. “It’s a little chilly, so I’ll come in when I’m done and we can wait for Ethan inside,” I added, hoping to give Ethan a clean getaway.
“Maybe you should bring the pizza back up here and spend the time making up,” she suggested softly, as if talking to herself, but loud enough to make sure I heard. Thankfully, the next sounds I heard were her footsteps on the stairs.
I shut my eyes and bit back a smile, before turning to look down at Ethan. “So I guess you heard all that.”
“Most of it. And I vote with your mom—let’s bring the pizza up here. Hell, let’s get a pizza delivered—I don’t need the time to lick my wounds.” He tugged me back down on top of him and cupped my hip through the now-tangled sheets. “So what do you think?”
I stared down at him, baffled. “Are you looking for a critique?” “Not exactly,” he said. “I’m more interested in your feeling on doing this again.”
“Right now?” Damn if the man wasn’t a superhero!
“I’d prefer it if you’d give me a few more minutes,” he said wryly. “Let me rephrase. How do you feel about keeping the ‘benefits’ option open?”
“Good,” I told him, considering. “Very good.”
“I’d kind of hoped you were going to need a little more convincing,” he said. Judging by his expression, he wasn’t referring to a well-constructed argument.
“Why don’t we just call it catching up?” I suggested and fell into him all over again.
We decided the story would be that Ethan came back with the pizza and we ate it alone in my apartment. In reality we ate squeeze cheese on Ritz crackers, red grapes, and Nilla Wafers with milk, sort of a postcoital picnic. And afterwards we lingered at the door, knowing that things would be different once it was opened.
“So . . . can I tweet this?” he asked with a face that couldn’t hold a serious expression.
“Only if I can tweet your alter ego, Double-oh Chavez.”
“Secrets all around, then, huh?”
“Secret handshake? Pinky swear?”
“I trust you,” he said, running a finger down my cheek, sending a shiver up my spine. I offered up a wobbly smile. “See you at school, Cate.”
I watched him walking down my stairs, his dark hair silvering in the moonlight, and thought of Cary Grant . . . and Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Ethan was sliding almost effortlessly into every conceivable, dreamy role my imagination had conjured over the past couple of weeks: superhero, government spy, Cary Grant charmer—even, it seemed, Mr. Knightley.
I watched him sliding through the shadows until he disappeared from view, and then I shut the door, the weekend now officially at an end. Tomorrow I would return to normalcy.
But what was normal, anyway? Not much since Cat had sidled into my life, followed closely by Gypsy Jane and Agent Chavez. My head suddenly hurt, and I moved to the couch, planning to throw over the journal tonight in favor of a little mindless television.
The second I dropped, my phone rang from the bedroom, so I pulled myself up again to catch it before it went to voice mail.
“Hey, Court, how was your weekend?” I asked, staring at my much-rumpled bed with its froth of white sheets.
“Lovely,” she said. “Sexy too.”
“Are we still talking about your weekend?” I asked dubious
ly, suddenly aware that those adjectives could rather adequately describe my own weekend.
“We are,” she said mysteriously.
“What a coincidence,” I countered, equally mysterious, “mine too.” I dropped down onto the bed, considering how much to reveal.
“Want to come down here tomorrow after work, and we can trade stories?”
“Accepting your invitation doesn’t in any way compel me to participate in any ghost-hunting activities, does it?”
“No. But I may make you tag along. Goggles are optional.”
“Maybe you could just hit the highlights right now,” I suggested, hoping I could make my decision based on the preview.
Courtney waited a beat before answering, no doubt wondering if this would play to her advantage.
“Okay. Remember the guy from the elevator? The not-so-amateur ghost hunter?”
“Yeah,” I said warily.
“We went out last night, and afterwards he let me play with his equipment.”
“What?!” I blurted. I came up off the bed with a guilty start and stood waiting, desperate to hear the rest.
“His ghost-hunting equipment, Cate.”
I honestly couldn’t say if this was an improvement over my original assumption, but it was clear I was going to need to suit up again (the goggles were a must for preserving a modicum of dignity) to get the full story.
“See you tomorrow around six-ish,” I said, not yet ready to share my own equipment story.
When I hung up I opened today’s e-mail from Pop-up Culture and skimmed over it again. I had no idea how Syd and Company had pulled this off, but it was the opportunity of a lifetime, and I didn’t plan to miss it. Each time I’d canoed on Lady Bird Lake, I’d gazed longingly up at those houses, imagining the views of the Austin skyline to the east and the winding path of the lake to the west as it flowed down from the Hill Country.
I hit Reply and quickly typed in my info, my finger hovering over the box to specify “number attending.”
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